


Faith: The Vampire Slayer

by beetle



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: AU, Episode: s01e01 Welcome to the Hellmouth, Episode: s01e02 The Harvest, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 10:32:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is . . . the Slayer."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I twist others' work to my own ends.  
> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: AU. A rewrite of BtVS S1 ep: “Welcome to the Hellmouth” / “The Harvest”. Oblique spoilers.

Midnight. . . .  
  
On the roof of Sunnydale High, two young men lay on a blanket, talking softly and occasionally necking. Every once in awhile, they pause to look up at the stars above, or the town below. As the night grows older, the fair-haired young man spends more and more time gazing at the man beside him, than the vista before him.  
  
“So . . . does bringing guys up here, like, guarantee you get laid?”  
  
“I refuse to answer, on the grounds that it may incriminate me.”  
  
“And I choose to overlook your obviously sordid past because you’re spectacularly hot . . . and the view  _is_  pretty nice.”  
  
“From where I’m sittin’, the view’s amazin’.”  
  
“Nice save. Very smooth.”  
  
“Well, I practiced on all those other guys I brought up here.”  
  
They kiss again, slow and unhurried. They’ve got all night.  
  
“You know, panoramic view aside. . . this place has a weird-- _vibe_. Something kinda creepy, kinda off. . . .”  
  
“Aw, I’ll keep ya safe from the big, bad vibe.”  
  
”Hmm . . . who’s gonna keep me safe from big, bad _you_?”  
  
“I’ll have you know I’m a perfect gentleman. . . .”   
  
“Says the man with his hand down my pants--hey, did you hear that?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“That--click!”  
  
“It's nothing--”  
  
 _Click!_  
  
“You gonna tell me  _that’s_  nothing, too?!”   
  
“Actually I planned to distract you from the nothing, in a fairly ingenious manner. . . .”  
  
“ _Something’s_  making that noise!”  
  
“Or maybe it's some  _thing_. . . .”   
  
“Okay, that’s not funny.”  
  
“Fine-- _hello? Is any_ thing _up here? Any bogarts or beasties lookin’ for a tasty midnight snack. . . ?_  See? There's nothin’ up here but me and thee, gorgeous.”  
  
“You’re sure?”  
  
“One hundred percent. Now, where was I. . . ?”   
  
“I th-think you were right about  _there_ \--”  
  
“--mmm, and here, too, I think.”  
  
“Yeah . . . definitely there, too, that’s--ow! Hey, what the fuck are you  _doing-- stop_ \--!”  
  
By moonset, both young men--though one of them was neither young, nor a man--have gone. The roof is once more untenanted, except by the Pli’niik demon that makes its nest behind the supply shed.  
  
It leaves its nest, shuffles its bulky form to the bloody blanket left by its uninvited guests. Picks up the scents of _bloodsexfearhumandeath_  and . . .  _vampire_.  
  
Clicking its distaste, it returns to its nest, and its interrupted repose.  
  


*

  
  
_The the fact that the flesh wound in her side is now only bleeding sluggishly, she’s still running for her life. About to be fighting for it, as well.  
  
The whole school is a labyrinthine death-trap of demons, fires, crumbling foundation and creaking superstructure. Behind her, roars, hisses and shouts--none of them in English--get closer.   
  
She’d done her best to keep the spillover contained--limit the number of demons to escape the gaping maw of the Hellmouth, and it’s immediate vicinity. And she’d succeeded. Between the magic and Slayer strength, they’d winnowed down the the escapees to something manageable, something a tenured Slayer could handle in her sleep.  
  
Sleep . . . the very thing she’s been going without for nearly three days.  
  
Somehow, like every dumb blonde in every grade-q horror movie, she takes a wrong turn: into an about-to-be-literal dead-end of lockers. The only thing for it is to turn and face them. She’d used up her holy water, lost her sword, ax, stakes and hope somewhere along the way . . . but that doesn’t matter.   
  
She’s spent her whole life fighting. It only makes sense that she die fighting as well.   
  
The demons round the corner together, like the Magnificent Seven; only there’s at least ten of them, and they’re not so much with the magnificence. They're a moving nightmare of teeth and claws and scales and . . . _things _that her Watcher probably knows the names of, but she doesn’t. Doesn’t_ need _to know. For her, their names only mean one thing, anyway.  
  
The demons have stopped, are milling less than fifteen feet away--despite the distance, she still wishes she was a mouth-breather--growling and hissing and laughing at her.  
  
“Bring it on, ladies!” She shouts, with more bravado than she actually feels. Half a Slayer’s game is convincing the other side she’s still in it, even when she’s not. (Sadly, the other half is something about avoiding debilitating blood-loss and not getting backed into a corner, but--c’est la vie.)  
  
And who knew things that ugly and smelly could giggle like a gaggle of schoolgirls?  
  
“You think I’m fuckin’ funny? We’ll see how funny I am when rip your heads off! I’ll be a laugh riot!” And that doesn’t sound in-the-game at all, what with the panting and swaying and broken voice; but she’s working at a deficit, as her esteemed Watcher would say.   
  
The demons stop laughing suddenly, and their unholy, heinously ugly ranks part. _It _steps forth, arms wide open and smiling such a_ mom _-smile, that she takes an uncertain step toward it before she remembers.  
  
“There you are, sweetie,” it says, all sugar and spice. Pale and pretty in the kind of pale and pretty, billowy clothes that it--that_she _would never have been caught alive in. “You're late._ Too _late.”  
  
“I know . . . I know--I’m sorry, Mom. . . .” that’s the blood-loss and possible concussion talking. She, of all people, has never been one for bandying about apologies, or the M-word. She of all people knows that the obscenity walking toward her is a demon, and nothing more. The mask it wears, no matter how familiar and beloved, is just a mask. Calling it _Mom _is to blaspheme against the woman whose body it currently wears.  
  
It takes another step toward her and she tries to back up; the press of a padlock into her spine sends that airy dream crashing to Earth and boy is this vamp is to close for comfort.  
  
"Cold. . . .” it shivers into gameface, but that June Cleaver smile doesn’t waver--is all the more horrible for the fangs that distort it. Greed-yellow eyes shine with possessiveness and blood-lust. “Breakfast is getting cold. . . .”   
  
_Huh? _She thinks, sagging against the lockers as her strength vanishes with a near-audible_ whoosh! _The vamp chuckles or snarls--something that involves the unveiling of way more fangs--as its posse closes in behind it.  
  
“Waffles from _scratch _, mind you . . . not those godawful frozen things you eat,” the vamp insists, bending till it and she are eye-level. It sounds eerily like her Watcher at the same time it sounds like her mother. “And they won’t stay warm forever, you know?”  
  
The world spins, wavers in and out of focus as she stares helplessly into its eyes. Maybe this is thrall, though she’s never once run across a vamp, master or otherwise, with that particular power.   
  
_There’s a first time for everything, though, _she thinks as cold fingers brush her hair out of her face, then drift feather-light down to her throat  
  
She’s dead, there’s no way around that. No way that involves the keeping of her soul. But she’s cool with death--at least it’ll mean something, buy the coven the time they need to stabilize the Hellmouth.  
  
But this close to the epicenter, even the magically challenged would feel the output of power, the sudden cessation of evil, unless. . . .  
  
_They’re dead. All dead, and worse, for a spell that doesn’t work. _  
  
That’s something that’s too horrible to think about--even more horrible than the soft, dead hand that closes around her throat, and the soft, carrion breath that washes over her face. . . ._  
  


*

  
  
“No!” She bolts up, one hand on her throat, the other flung out to ward off--  
  
\--shuttered sunlight crawling over spanking-new furniture, a few as-yet unpacked boxes, and a knock at her bedroom door. The door opens just enough for Wes to poke his head in. From the look of the Samsonites under his eyes, he’s been sleeping about as well as she has.  
  
“Time to get up, Faith.”   
  
She blinks groggily, rubbing tired, gritty eyes. Wes sounds far too parental for too-fucking-early a.m.. “Yeah, I'm up,  _Mum_.”  
  
“Breakfast is on the table.” A wan half-smile. “I certainly hope you appreciate your Watcher making waffles from scratch. It's not nearly as easy as cookbooks make it out to be.”  
  
“Smells good. Thanks,” Faith yawns. "I’m definitely in the need of fortification.”  
  
“Are you alright?" Wes opens the door a bit more, so he can lean on the frame. Despite the weariness stamped on his face, he‘s as alert and sharp as always. "I thought I heard you call out.”  
  
“It was nothin’, just--bad dreams.” She shrugs.   
  
“ _Bad_  as in precognitive?”  
  
All kinds of light comes on behind his eyes, and Faith rolls hers. Good ol' Wes, ever the Watcher. “Bad as in  _bad_ , that's all. Just a garden variety nightmare; sorry to disappoint you.”  
  
That Watcherly light goes out and he’s just  _Wesley_  again. “You've never disappointed me, Faith . . . was it Cleveland, again?”   
  
“Both fucking barrels, it was Cleveland.” She flops back down and pulls the covers up over her head. “Not like I ever have nightmares about anything else. Do you?”   
  
When the silence stretches out for a few minutes, Faith pushes the blanket down to her chin. Wes is looking at his hands; the patches of skin are rough and shiny with scar tissue. Cue pangs of guilt and a profound sense of failure, both feelings as faithful and reliable as a family dog.  
  
“You saved the world,” Wes says softly. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”  
  
“Wasn’t yours, either.”   
  
As always, Faith wonders which of them is lying.   
  
Wes clears his throat and turns away; when he speaks, his voice is miles distant. “Well, hurry, or you’ll be late for your first day.”  
  
“Ten-four, Wes.”  _The fuck?_  Faith thinks, stretching and frowning up at the peachy-pastel colored ceiling. Wes is already halfway down the stairs when when she remembers: today is her first day as a sophomore at Sunnydale High.  
  
“Ah, crap.”  
  


*

  
  
“This place is, like--hard-core Stepford, Wes. I’m not seein’ a whole lotta evil from here.”  
  
Wes’s late model Volvo is idling up in front of the highschool. They’ve been watching students come and go for nearly five minutes. And though there’s a definite  _vibe_  about the campus--something weird, something creepy, something . . .  _off_ \--nothing about Sunnydale High seems out of place.  
  
“Looks can be deceiving, Faith, trust me. Underneath the gingerbread trim and manicured lawns. . . .” Wes pauses dramatically and Faith resists the strong urge to shake him till his teeth fall out. “Underneath all of this is the mouth of Hell.”  
  
Faith pops her gum and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but is the highschool a  _magnet highschool_ , so I can get my learn on? That’s the key question, Wes.”  
  
He frowns in thought. “Not magnet, but seventy-eight percent of Sunnydale High grads who survive go on to four-year universities. Usually  _out-of-state_  four-year universities, and--this is funny why?”  
  
But Faith’s too busy laughing and choking on her gum to answer, and Wes sighs. “Do try not to get kicked out of school on your first day?”  
  
Faith’s about to reply with something smart-alecky, designed to make Wes cringe, but the earnest look on his face really takes the joy out of watching him squirm.  
  
“I’ll try, Mum,” she promises, because she means it, and because the tired, gentle smile it nets her makes coloring in the lines totally worth it.  
  
“Thank you. That’s all I ask--and that you remember to check in with me during lunch.”  
  
“Done-ski.” Faith gets out of the Volvo and faces the school, taking a deep breath.   
  
“You’ll do fine, Faith!” Wes calls, pulling away from the curb. “You’ve handled far worse than highschool!”  
  
“Easy for you to say, monarchy-boy,” she mutters to herself as Wes turns into the parking lot. “Next time we play  _21 Jump Street_ , you get to be the sophomore and  _I_  get to be the librarian.”  
  


*

  
  
“Comin' through--pardon me, hot soup!”   
  
Jesse ducks and dodges his way through the sea of student humanity, trying not to get knocked off his skateboard. “'Scuse me, not sure how to stop! Please move, 'scuse me-- _whoa_!”  
  
And suddenly, avoiding a potential catastrophe doesn’t seem as important as the hot girl in suicidally tight jeans, a white wife-beater and black leather jacket. World-weary dark eyes dismiss him before they even see him, then he’s staring at hair, at distressed leather, at her ass, at well-cared for Doc Martens as they ascend the front steps.  
  
“Wow. . . .” and that’s when the potential catastrophe strikes in the form of the stair railing he totally knew was there, but had momentarily overlooked. The next thing he knows, he’s laying in a heap at the foot of the steps with aching ribs, and the girl is gone.  
  
“Gruz,” he says, when he has enough breath to say anything. Then small hands are helping him up and dusting him off.  
  
“I'm okay . . . no permanent damage,” he assures Willow; he’d be embarrassed if anyone besides her had even noticed.   
  
Willow smiles and tucks her hair behind her ears. “You know your I'm-okay-face and your wipeout-on-my-skateboard face are disturbingly similar?”  
  
“I think someone needs to get their eyes checked,” Jesse says loftily, but throws an arm around his best friend. “You’re just lucky you're so very much the person that I wanted to see.”   
  
Willow’s smile turns a little wary. “Oh, really?”  
  
“Yes, really. Walk with me, talk with me.”  
  
Jesse picks up his board and tugs Willow up the school steps.  
  
“So, I kinda had a problem with the math. . . .”  
  
“Uh, which part?”  
  
“The part that was math, obviously. Can you help me out tonight, pleeeease? Be my study-buddy?”  
  
Willow pretends to think about it, but her mouth is already twitching likes she wants to say yes. “Well, what's in it for me?”  
  
“A shiny nickel!”  
  
She giggles. “Okay. Do you have 'Theories in Trig'? If not, you should check it out.”  
  
“ _Check it out_?” When it comes to Jesse telling Willow what he thinks of her half-assed attempts at  _The Slang_ , he lets his eyebrow do the talking.   
  
Willow sighs. “Check it out  _from the library?_  Where the books live?”  
  
Jesse smacks his forehead. “Right! I'm so there! See, I wanna change.”  
  
“Sure, you do.” They step through the front doors and Jesse groans.  
  
“Out of the sunshine and once more into the dim and dusty halls of academe. . . .” he intones gravely and is cut off--just before Willow probably would’ve told him to shut up--by a headlock that’s redolent of chocolate and cheese curls.  
  
“Hola, mis amigos!”  
  
“Yo, Xander, what's the what?” Jesse chokes out, elbowing his other best friend in the gut to make him let go. Unfazed, Xander darts in front of them, walking backwards and bouncing like he thinks he’s--well, Xander.  
  
“New kid!” He informs them. Jesse grins.   
  
“I saw her, and I gotta say: very much a hottie.”   
  
“Huh . . . I’d heard someone was transferring in. . . .” Willow trails off. Jesse and Xander exchange a glance.  
  
“So? Quit with the suspense already, and tell!”   
  
“Tell what?”  
  
“Uh, the time?” Jesse rolls his eyes in exasperation. “Wills! What do you know about her?”  
  
She pouts. “Well, I know she’s new--a-and a girl.”  
  
Xander slings an arm around her shoulder. “Willow, you’re a font of nothing.”  
  
“But we love you, anyway.” Jesse’s arm goes over Xander’s.  
  
“Yes, I’m really feelin’ the love,” Willow says wryly. “Come on, or we’ll be late for homeroom.  
  


*

  
  
“Faith Lehane, sophomore, late of RFK High in Cleveland, Ohio . . . interesting record, quite a career. . . .”  
  
Faith tries not to pop her gum or swing her leg up onto Principal Flutie’s desk as he eyes her thoughtfully. He’s not an imposing man, but he  _is_  someone who could make her time on the Hellmouth, well, Hell.  
  
After a moment, Flutie takes Faith’s high school transcript and tears it in two, then in four. Faith’s eyebrows lift minutely in question.  
  
“Welcome to Sunnydale! A clean slate, Faith, that's what you get here. What's past is past. We're not interested in what it says on a piece of paper, even if it says--whoa.” Flutie’s eyes widen as a word on one of the torn pieces catches his eyes.  
  
 _So much for the clean slate._  Faith sighs. “Look, Principal Flutie--”  
  
“All the kids here are free to call me Bob.”  
  
“Uh . . . Bob?”  
  
“But they don't.”  
  
He begins reassembling and scotch-taping together the torn sheet.  
  
“Look, Mr. F, I know my transcripts are a little . . . colorful--”  
  
“Heeey . . . we're not caring about that!” Flutie sounds nervous and anything but uncaring. He’s sure taping Faith's transcript together like he’s caring. “Do you really think 'colorful' is the word? Not, uh, 'dismal'?”  
  
“C’mon, it’s not  _that_  bad!”  
  
Flutie looks at her and--yep, there’s definitely anxiety in those squirrely little eyes. “According to this you blew up the RFK gym.”  
  
Faith takes a deep breath and lets it out, wondering why in the hell Wes hadn’t gotten the Council to expunge her record. Knowing him, he probably  _had_  tried, but . . . the Council is fond of reminding both the Slayer and her Watcher who’s in charge.  
  
“Okay, maybe I blew it up a  _little_  bit--but you're not seeing the big picture here, Princ! That gym was full of monst--monstrous health code violations. Asbestos, killer mold, you name it.” Faith tries for sincerity, but knows she’s falling far short. Some faces just aren’t cut out for inspiring trust.  
  
“Faith, don't worry. Any other school they might say 'watch your step', or 'we'll be watching you'. But that's just not the way  _here_. We want to service your needs, and help you to respect our needs. And if your needs and our needs don't mesh--”  
  
Flutie puts the taped up sheet back into Faith’s file and slaps it shut, giving his newest student a thin, nervous smile.  
  
 _Right . . . a fresh start. . . ._  
  


*

  
  
Stepping out of Flutie's office Faith lets out a breath.  
  
“I do not get paid enough to do this shit.”   
  
She stalks down the hall and rooting around in her backpack for the pack of emergency,  _never-to-be-smoked-’cause-I’ve-quit_ cigarettes she keeps at the bottom.  
  
 _Barely here one day and I’m off the cancer-stick wagon . . . this can’t be good_  
  
Faith’s so intent on finding her smokes--blessed, wonderful, nerve-calming smokes--that she slams right into some gangly skater-kid, nearly knocking him down. Slayer instinct and reflexes make her drop the bag and catch the kid.  
  
The price of keeping the kid on his feet, of course, is her bag hitting the floor and all her crap flying out every which way.  
  
"Ah, Christ!” She shoves the goggly-eyed skater-boy away from her and bends over to pick up her stuff, cramming things into her backpack quickly; even her smokes. By the time she even finds the girls’ room, class will have started and she promised Wes she'd  _try_. At least for today.   
  
"If you hadn't caught me, I'd have cracked my skull open!" The kid's voice is shaky with nervous laughter. "How'd you  _do_  that? That was impossible, and--so fucking  _cool!_ "   
  
"Yeah, I'm constantly amazed by my panther-like reflexes." Her walkman is probably broken. Wes'd buy her a new one if she asked, but that's so not the point--   
  
“Hey--um. . . .” a pair of battered  _Converse All Stars_ ’s shuffle nervously, just in her field of vision. “Can I have you?”  
  
Faith looks up; the skater is making cow-eyes at her.  
  
“Uh--I meant,  _help_  you--can I help you with that?” He asks, turning all sorts of red in the face.  
  
Holding onto what’s left of her patience with the citizens of Sunnydale, Faith makes herself smile as she stands up and shoulders her pack. “Thanks, but I think I’ve got this sitch under control, Prince Valiant. You can run along, now.”  
  
“I don’t know you, do I? I coulda sworn we’ve met before. . . .”  
  
Faith waits for him to start walking, hopefully toward  _his_  homeroom, but no dice. She briefly considers slaying him, then dismisses the idea with a sigh. She promised she’d try. “If we’d met before now, believe me, champ, you’d remember it.”   
  
“Well, then lemme introduce myself--I’m Jesse. Jesse McNally. That’s me. Hi.” He smiles and holds out his hand.   
  
“Uh-huh . . . well, I’m late for homeroom, Jesse--”  
  
“Oh, yeah, sure!” And who said that face couldn’t get any goofier? “Hey . . . since we both go to school, maybe I'll see you around?”  
  
“Yeah. Maybe,” Faith says, but she's already shouldering past him. In a few seconds, he's already forgotten; with Flutie all nervous, the last thing she needs is to be late for homeroom or her first class.   
  


*

  
  
“ _We both go to school_ ,” Jesse mutters to himself, watching her walk away. “Very suave, loser. Very not pathetic.”  
  
It's more than past time to wander off to his own homeroom, but something on the floor catches his eye. Probably something from hot-girl's backpack, which means Jesse at least has an excuse to talk to her again, maybe without making an ass of himself.  
  
He’s already bent down to pick it up before what it is registers in his brain.  
  
After a few moments of wide-eyed surprise, Jesse snatches it up and stuffs it in his bag quickly, glancing around to make sure the few stragglers left in the hall haven’t noticed.  
  
 _Yeah,_  he thinks, hurrying off to his and Xander’s first class.  _Asking a hot girl why she carries a wooden stake to school is nothing, if not a hell of an icebreaker._  
  



	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is . . . the Slayer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I twist others' work to my own ends.  
> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: AU. A rewrite of BtVS S1 ep: “Welcome to the Hellmouth” / “The Harvest”. Oblique spoilers.

Faith’s doubts about whether or not there really is a Hellmouth under this school have skipped out on the back rent, and left town.   
  
“It's estimated that about twenty-five million people died in that one four-year span. But the fun part of the Black Plague is that it originated in Europe--how?”  
  
Mr. Chomsky answers his own question, then drones on. Faith’s not the only one who isn’t even taking notes. Considering the stuffiness:dullness ratio of room and subject, she thinks the whole class deserves some kind of medal for not only staying awake, but for not committing hari-kari with their Bics.  
  
Her millionth glance at the clock tells her that time hasn’t just stopped, it may be moving backwards. Soon, it’ll start to drip and run, like the clocks in Dali’s paintings.   
  
 _Maybe Dali went to school on a Hellmouth. . . ._  
  
Which makes her wonder about Picasso, Klee and Rockwell.  
  
It’s as good a way as any to pass some minutes.  
  
“. . . as an early form of germ warfare. If you'll look at the map on page sixty-three you can trace the spread of the disease into Rome, and then north. . . .”  
  
 _Shit, he’s probably gonna test us on this. I guess it wouldn’t kill me to write down_ something _. Or. . . ._  
  
To Faith’s left, a mousy, pretty little redhead is scribbling furiously, like her life depends on it. From the look on her face, learning all about the Black Plague sends her to her happy place.   
  
Wes  _had_  suggested she try to make some friends. If she made a studious friend who took detailed notes on the Black Plague . . . Wes’d probably cream his jeans.  
  
“‘Scuse me,” she whispers across the aisle. “Can I share with you? I don’t have a textbook.”   
  
“Oh, sure,” A flash of big green eyes and shy smile make Faith smile back. They shuffle their desks closer.  
  
“Thanks, Red.”  
  
The girl blushes and looks down at the the map of plague-ridden medieval Europe.   
  
“. . . and this popular plague led to what social changes? Miss Rosenberg?”  
  
The redhead looks up again, face all lit up, mouth wide open to answer--just as the bell rings. Everyone jumps up to leave; Red pouts, but scoops up her books and scurries toward the door with the rest of the herd.  
  
“Yo, Red! Faith calls before her quarry can disappear into the sea of student humanity. Startled, Red turns looking slightly frightened. The last of their class shoves and surges past her without regard. “Thanks for the assist.”  
  
“Oh!” Red’s starts inching backwards to the door, an awkward smile plastered on her face. “Not a problem! Glad to help!”  
  
“I’m new here. My first day, so I don’t have any textbooks, yet.” Faith does some inching of her own, and tries for the same harmless smile she’d given Principal Flutie. When they’re close enough to shake hands, Faith holds out her own. “By the way, I’m Faith.”  
  
“I’m Willow.” The girl accepts the hand Faith holds out with a less awkward version of the previous smile. “And you can get some textbooks of your own from the library right now, since it’s lunch.”  
  
Faith turns on the charm. “This school’s wicked huge . . . maybe you could take me there, so I don’t get lost?”  
  
“Um . . . okay.” Willow clutches her books to her chest like a shield. “I don’t know how the  _new_  librarian is, but Mrs. Kirkenbaugh never gave out textbooks without a schedule and i.d. . . .”  
  
“No worries, I’ve got my schedule, and I’ve got an in with the librarian.”   
  
Fine red eyebrows try to merge with Willow’s hairline. The frightened look has left her face completely, replaced by something verging on awe. Faith makes a mental note:  _Red, bookworm._  “You do?”  
  
“Yeah, he’s my guardian.”   
  
“No  _way_! That's so great!” Willow’s practically vibrating in place, her green eyes wide and starry, like she just met Einstein. “You’ll probably have access to the school collection, like, whenever you want and oh, my God, you must think I’m the single dullest person alive!”  
  
Faith laughs, clapping Willow on the shoulder. “Nah, you’re alright. I’ve been living with an English librarian for the past couple years, so believe me--I know from dull.” She steers them out of the empty classroom.  
  
Willow slips down the crowded hall like a wraith, easing around and edging past everyone, a timid mouse slipping past rats and cats.  
  
In her wake, Faith strides down the hall, assuming--correctly--that space will be made for her. Where it isn’t, she shoves through with a  _pardon me_  as an afterthought.  
  
The closer they get to the library, the further they get from the exits and the caf, the thinner the crowds of students, till Faith and Willow are walking side by side.  
  
Willow keeps sneaking curious peeks at her. “So . . . how long have you been in town?” As a conversational gambit, it’s pretty lame, but somehow it adds to the fuzzy ball of cuteness that is Willow.  
  
 _Easy, girl, I’m pretty sure Wes didn’t mean make_ that _kinda friend. You don’t have the time or a normal enough life for_ that _kinda friend. Off limits. Verboten. Hands off. Willow Rosenberg is a no-fly zone--_.   
  
Faith kicks her conscience in the ass to shut it up. “Just a few days ago. I’m still trying to get the hang of this place. I’m not used to livin’ in the ‘burbs.”   
  
Now, that curious gaze turns frank and assessing. Ignoring her conscience, Faith wonders if Willow likes what she sees.   
  
“You'll do okay here. If--you know, you don’t hang with people like me. You’ll be accepted in no time.”   
  
“Accepted?”  
  
“By the cool people.”  
  
“Oh, them.” Faith rolls her eyes.  
  
“Yeah, them.” They turn a corner and nearly run into a leggy, gorgeous brunette with privilege-princess written all over her. She smiles, big and fake, when she sees who nearly knocked her over.  
  
“Willow! Nice dress! Good to know you've seen the softer side of  _Sears_.”  
  
“Oh, w-well, my mom p-picked it out,” Willow is stammering and blushing, which should be cute, but it just makes Faith angry.   
  
The princess rolls her eyes. “No wonder you're such a guy magnet. Who’s your new friend? Oh, don’t tell me--” she pretends to think for a moment. “A roadie for The Donnas?”  
  
Willow looks confused, but Faith--who happens to like The Donnas--can tell when she’s been dissed.  
  
“Why don’t you go be a spoiled bitch somewhere else, Legs. My friend and I were talking.”  
  
Dark eyes narrow angrily. “Hey! Maybe you don’t know who I am, yet--”  
  
“Yeah, okay, bored now.” Faith takes Willow’s arm; steers them both around the spluttering princess and down the hall.   
  
“I can’t believe you did that!” Willow whispers, looking up and around as if she expects lighting to strike them both dead.   
  
“What, was she one of the cool people?”  
  
“She’s  _Cordelia Chase_ ,” Willow says. “The  _coolest_  people.”  
  
“Wow, that’s . . . disappointing, but not at all surprising.”  
  
“She’s the richest, most popular girl in school and you’ve just made the top of her enemies list.” Willow’s seems torn between amusement, pity and religious awe. “You’re, like, the bravest person ever.”  
  
“I get that a lot,” Faith dead-pans. Willow stops in the middle of the hall and waits for Faith to stop before speaking.  
  
“Look, you’ve got a chance at fitting in here. But the first rule of fitting in is: know your losers.” Willow gestures at herself, hand fluttering in a tense up-down motion. “Once you learn to identify us by sight we’re a lot easier to avoid.”   
  
Faith crosses her arms. “No one tells me who to be friends with. Not you . . . ’specially not  _that_  chick. So. D’ya wanna be friends, Red? ‘Cuz I’m in the market for a friend.”  
  
“I--I--sure?”  
  
“Good, that’s settled then.” Faith starts walking again. After a few seconds, Willow catches up. “So what do you Sunnydale types do for fun, hunh? Cow-tipping?”  
  
“Well, um, there’s  _The B-bronze._ ”  
  
“ _The Bronze_?”  
  
“It's this really cool club in the bad part of town--which, admittedly, is only five minutes away from the good part of town. And they have live music some nights and sometimes there are theme nights, and--ooh!” Willow perks up. “They serve blooming onions and they let anybody in!”  
  
“Deep fried onions  _and_  they let anybody in? Sounds like my kinda joint.”   
  
“Then you should definitely show--my friends and I are gonna be there, if, you know . . . you wanna hang with us.” Willow’s eyes are huge and hopeful, and she bounces, just a little.   
  
 _Why, Miss Rosenberg . . . are you asking me out?_  “I'll be there.”   
  
“Cool!” Willow beams at Faith, then clears her throat points at a pair of swinging doors. “That’s the library!”  
  
For a moment, Faith completely blanks. Then: “Oh--right, yeah. Hey, thanks.”  
  
“Hey, no, sure. Um, I’m gonna meet my friends for lunch, but we’ll be outside on the quad if--you know. . . .”  
  
Picturing herself surrounded by pretty, Willow-esque bookworms, Faith grins. “After I get the textbook sitch squared away, I’m all yours.”  
  
“Great--I mean, thanks--uh . . . later!” Willow hurries off with a wave and the shy-smile.  
  
“Laters, Red.” Faith watches till she turns a corner. “Some clubbing, then a sweep of the cemeteries . . . that’s a plan and a half in the my book.”  
  
She steps into the library. It’s wood paneled, dim, for all the sunlight streaming in the window . . . and apparently empty. Huh.   
  
“Yo? Anybody home? Wes?”  
  
“One moment, Faith!” Wes’s preoccupied voice floats out from the small office behind the checkout counter.  
  
Strolling over to a table, Faith notices a today's newspaper. The front page article has been circled in red ink: ‘ **Grad Student Missing** ’. Under the headline is a photo of a cute blond guy with kind eyes.   
  
Unbidden, the term  _vamp-chow_  pops into her head, thought it could just be that Richard James McAvoy took off without telling anyone. Just playing hooky, only . . . maybe hooky lasted a little longer than it should have. . . .  
  
 _Shyeah, right. That guy’s dead. Welcome to the Hellmouth, Faith_ , she thinks, unwilling to examine the strange feeling of rightness, of homecoming that washes over her.  
  


*

  
  
The quad is picturesque and littered with trendy Cali kids, which makes Willow and her friends easy to spot.   
  
As Faith approaches, her hopes of being surrounded by Willow-clones is unceremoniously dashed. Willow’s flanked by two brunets and both of them are boys: one is cute enough that even Faith gives him a second look. The other--is Jesse, the skater.  
  
“Hey!” He exclaims, scooching closer too Willow and the other boy to make room for Faith. “Looks like it’s a small world, after all!”  
  
“Too small.” Faith shakes her head, thinking:  _small world, perverse universe._  
  
The other boy is eyeing her warily, but Willow’s smiling like it's judgement day. “Faith--this is Jesse and Xander. Guys, this is Faith. She’s new here.”  
  
“We’ve met,” Jesse says, his right eyebrow quirking up in a way that’d be debonair on anyone else. “Though we weren’t formally introduced.”  
  
The other boy--Xander’s gaze ticks between them. “You guys’ve met already?”  
  
“Oh, me and Faith go waaay back; we’re old friends, very close.” Jesse sighs melodramatically. “Then there's that period of estrangement--I think we were both growing as people--but now, here we are, just like old times! I'm verklempt!”  
  
Xander reaches over Willow and whaps Jesse’s arm. “Is it just me, or are you turning into a bibbling idiot?”  
  
“No, it's not just you.” Faith holds out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Xander.”  
  
They shake hands and Xander’s eyes warm a little. “Same here. Welcome to the ‘Dale.”   
  
“Thanks.” Faith’s eyes land on Xander’s half-eaten sandwich and her stomach growls. “Hey, is that tuna salad?”  
  
Xander eyes the sandwich doubtfully.  
  
“Um--it’s chicken salad. I think. The Sunnydale High cafeteria specializes in mystery meat lunches . . . the mystery is whether it’s edible or not.”  
  
“Sounds adventurous.” Faith parks it next to Xander, ignoring Jesse’s disappointed pout. “And definitely not for the faint of stomach.”  
  
“I’m taking my life into my hands,” Xander admits gravely, then takes a huge bite. “Still better than brown-bagging it.”  
  
Remembering the last brown-bag lunch she’d been sent to school with--a can of corned beef hash and some  _Mentos_ \--Faith has to agree.  
  
“So, how'd the great textbook hunt go?” Willow asks, popping some grapes from a ziploc baggy into her mouth.  
  
“Oh, great. Got all the books I need in one swell foop.”  
  
“Hey, what do you think of our new librarian?” Jesse asks. “His name is--get this-- _Wesley Wyndham-Pryce_. Like something right out of  _Masterpiece Theater_. And you should see some of the creepy books he brought with him from London or wherever, and--Wills, what’s with the weird face?”  
  
“Ix-nay on the eepy-cray, esse-Jay,” Willow whispers, seemingly unaware Faith can not only hear her, but has also cracked her ingenious code.   
  
“What, is he standing behind us or something?” Jesse’s about to laugh, but quickly checks behind them.  
  
“No, I think Willow’s trying to keep you from swallowing  _both_  feet.” Faith snorts. “But I’m thinking that’d be a two-man job, at least.”   
  
“Jess, Mr. Wyndham-Pryce is her guardian.”   
  
“He’s your--oh. Oh, shit.” Jesse struggles to backtrack for several seconds before giving it up with a groan. “I just blew any chance I had with you, didn’t I?”  
  
“If it’s any consolation, your chances were pretty anorexic, anyway,” Xander says grinning cheerfully. Faith only barely catches the note of relief in his voice, but it’s there. That, coupled with the way he looks at Jesse--much the way like Willow’s looking at Xander right now--sets off all kinds of radar.   
  
 _Right. Willow’s crushing on Xander, Xander’s crushing on Jesse, Jesse’s crushing on_ me _and I--can’t start crushing on Willow. It’d be too freakin’ weird. A lurve-rectangle_  
  
“. . . evidence to the contrary, we really want to make you feel welcome and at home,” Willow’s saying in that terribly earnest way of hers.   
  
“Unless you have a scary home,” Xander adds. “In which case, ignore that last part.”  
  
“Oh, hey. . . .” Jesse roots around in his backpack and pulls out--a stake, of all things. “You dropped this earlier, and the only thing I can think is that you're building a really little fence.”  
  
“Wrong kinda stake,” Xander says. "That's more of a die-Dracula-die kinda stake, heh."   
  
Faith snatches the stake and hurriedly shoves it into her bag.  _Xander and Jesse . . . Benny and Pike. Same shit, different day. Christ. . . ._  
  
She represses a shudder and tries to smile nonchalantly. “Actually, it’s for self-defense. Everyone has ‘em in Cleveland. You ever tried to use pepper-spray in ninety-mile-an-hour winds?”  
  
They all appear to give it serious thought before shaking their heads no.  
  
“Well, I don’t recommend it, is all I’m saying.”  
  
Jesse nods solemnly. “So noted. Anyway, tell us about yourself: what do you do for fun, other than brave ninety-mile-an-hour winds? What’s your favorite color, what do you look for in a man--clue us in!”   
  
“What Jesse means is, if you have any dark, painful secrets you'd like us to publish--feel free to share,” Xander translates, rolling his eyes. The cold wariness he’d displayed earlier is completely gone; the natives have accepted her, apparently.  
  
“Not much goes on in a one Starbucks town like Sunnydale,” Willow says by way of explanation. “Yeah, you're pretty big news.”   
  
Jesse then proves this point by ogling Cordelia Chase as she sashays by. “Hey, Cordy! Lookin’ good!”  
  
“Well, well, if it isn't the downwardly-mobile brigade,” Cordelia says, but it sounds forced. To Faith, she looks pale under her make-up, and faintly nauseas.  
  
“Not that it wasn't swell catchin' up with ya, Cordelia--and it wasn't--but see ya in gym class, huh?” Xander waves her off. Cordelia, already walking away, stops and turns to look at him like he’s a moron.  
  
“Haven’t you heard? Gym's cancelled.”  
  
“Really?” Willow looks cautiously happy, but Jesse plays a little air guitar and Xander whoops happily.   
  
"I  _knew_  this was gonna be a good day!" They exchange high-fives.   
  
Now Cordelia looks horrified. “Aura just found a dead guy in her locker . . . so, yeah--this day? Really coming up roses.”  
  
"No way!” From Willow, Xander  _and_  Jesse.   
  
“ _Way_.” Cordelia shudders. “She opened her locker and he just--fell out. Almost on top of her.”  
  
“What did he look like?” Faith meets the four sets of eyes suddenly on her. “Was he blond, about twenty, twenty-two, with dimples?”  
  
“Uh, hello? Morbid, much?”   
  
“I’ll take that as a yes.”   
  
Not that Faith needs the princess to corroborate her intuitive leap. She’s the Slayer. Death is her business--her gift, and she knows it very well. The body in that locker was Richard James McAvoy.  
  
The only question was . . . would he rise? Probably not, if he hadn’t already, but some vamps, like some people, were just late bloomers.   
  
The cops hadn’t arrived yet--God bless small town response-time--which meant there was still time to get a peek at the body.  
  
“My first freakin’ day here,” she mutters. Everyone is still looking at her--Willow in confusion, Xander in suspicion and Jesse . . . seems oddly expectant.   
  
“How’d you know what Dead Guy looks like?” He asks. Faith shrugs.  
  
“You oughta read the paper, Jess. Dead Guy made the front page. He’s been missing all week.”  
  
No one says anything until Cordelia crosses her arms and sneers.  
  
“Well, I have better things to do with my unexpected free than play twenty questions with freaks and losers,” she announces, flouncing away.  
  
And though watching Cordelia walk away should bring a smile to Faith’s face--good-bye Cordelia’s rich-bitch ‘tude, hello Cordelia’s amazing ass--all she can think about is the face she’d seen earlier, circled in red ink.  
  
She’d accepted the fact that she couldn’t save them all awhile ago. Slayer’s aren’t omnipotent. But seeing their  _faces_  on the news or on a milk carton--or in the paper still hurts like failure.  
  
"Thank God it’s no one we know." Willow sniffs. Xander automatically puts an arm around her, but looks over at Jesse, who’s staring after Cordelia.  
  
"No one we know, so far. In this town, it’s only a matter of time."  
  
At least, that's what it  _sounds_  like Jesse says. Faith’s already walking back to the main building.  
  
“I gotta use the ladies’,” she calls over her shoulder. “I’ll catch you guys later.”  
  


*

  
  
“You heard?”  
  
“Oh, I heard, alright. And I had a look-see.”  
  
“And the verdict?”  
  
“It was McAvoy. He definitely ain't missing, anymore; vamp-chow.”  
  
“Damn.”  
  
“Not like we didn’t know what to expect. . . .”  
  
“Yes, but not on the first day. I was expecting that I’d be behind in my paperwork, or that I’d unintentionally insult one of the faculty. I didn’t expect there to be a body found on the campus before the day was out.”  
  
“At least the poor guy won’t be rising again.”  
  
“You’re sure?”  
  
“Look who you’re asking-- _’course_  I’m sure. I’m the Slayer, right?  _Into each generation a Slayer is born. One girl in all the world, a Chosen One, one born with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires_ , blah, blah, blah. . . .”  
  
“There’s a bit more than vampires on  _this_  Hellmouth, I should say. I’ve done some digging of my own, into the history of this place. There’ve been a steady stream of fairly odd occurrences--naturally, demons gravitate towards the mystical energy thrown off by a Hellmouth: zombies, werewolves, incubi, succubi--”  
  
“You’re really getting mileage out of that  _Time Life_  series, huh?”  
  
“I certainly don’t hear you complaining when you use the toaster that came with it. Anyway, that’s besides the point. This Hellmouth is potentially the worst in Earth’s history. Certainly worse than Cleveland.”  
  
“C’mon, Wes! Sunnydale is so damn--suburban! There’s no way  _this_  Hellmouth is worse than Cleveland.  _Nothing_  could ever be worse than Cleveland.”  
  
“Don’t tempt fate, we’ve enough on our plates, as it is. . . ."  
  
The library doors bang open--just as a puzzled teen steps out of the stacks, a copy of  _Theories In Trig_  in one hand and a half-eaten bag of nachos in the other.   
  
“Whah?” Jesse asks the empty library when the door swings shut.


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is . . . the Slayer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I twist others' work to my own ends.  
> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: AU. A rewrite of BtVS S1 ep: “Welcome to the Hellmouth” / “The Harvest”. Oblique spoilers.

The sense that she’s being followed starts the moment Faith leaves the house. By the time she reaches the corner of Revello Drive, she’s more than a little pissed.  
  
“Like I haven’t seen this in a million horror flicks,” she mutters, then raises her voice. “Alright, unless you wanna wind up in the e.r., show yourself!”   
  
No response, no motion; just that sense of being observed and sized-up.  
  
“Suit y’self.” Faith starts walking again. Whoever, or whatever’s out there follows her most of the way to  _The Bronze_  and finally, her nerves as cranked up as they’d ever been, Faith ducks into an alley. . . .  
  
Not thirty seconds later, her tail steps into the alley and looks around. He’s small, blond and pale, wearing baggy, nondescript clothes. The paleness sets off alarms in Faith’s mind, as does the fact that he moves so stealthily.  
  
 _Probably just some perv following what he thinks is an easy mark. . . ._    
  
Still, Faith’s pissed enough to wanna scare the crap out of him. When he’s beneath the girder she’s hanging from, Faith swings forward, making a controlled dismount--does a mid-air somersault so perfect, the Ukrainian judge would be cheering her name--and lands in front of the startled perv.   
  
But in the split second before her fist connects with his face, it registers that  _he_  is actually a  _she_.  
  
“Well, color me surprised.” Faith shoves the blonde to the ground easily and plants a Doc Marten on her neck. “This town's just a laugh a minute, ain’t it?”  
  
“That hurt,” Blondie chokes out, one hand over her nose, tears momentarily standing out in her cornflower-blue eyes. “That really, _really_  hurt.”  
  
“Not as much as it coulda.” Pressing harder with the boot. Enough to discourage chit-chat, not enough to discourage breathing. Yet. “Why’re you followin’ me?”  
  
Blondie wipes a thin trickle of blood from under her nose and looks at it, very red on her pale knuckles. Then she looks up at Faith and smiles, as if she doesn’t have a stranger’s boot on her neck.  
  
“I know what you're thinking.” Her voice has a softly teasing, slightly nasal quality. “But don't worry . . . I don't bite.”  
  
“Is that right?” Faith backs off, but doesn’t relax. Blondie sits up slowly, then gets to her feet; her eyes never leave Faith’s as she dusts herself off. “So is there a reason you’re followin’ me, or do you just get off on havin' your face punched in?”  
  
“You know, I thought you'd be taller, or have bigger muscles . . . some scars.” Blondie massages her neck. “You're pretty limber, though,” she adds wryly, walking toward Faith, her gaze frank and appraising. She doesn’t stop till they’re side by side.  
  
Faith tenses, but refuses flinch or be intimidated. “Spare me the sarcastic banter portion of the evening--what are you and whaddaya want?”  
  
“Let’s just say I’m a friend,” Blondie purrs right in Faith’s ear. Faith’s already turning, ready to cold-cock the crazy bitch again--put her lights out this time. But Blondie’s backing away, small, pale hands held up placatingly. “And what I want is the same thing  _you_ want.”  
  
“Oh, really?” Faith relaxes out of her fighting stance and crosses her arms over her chest. “And what would that be, since everyone seems to think they know me, today.”  
  
Blondie tilts her head, offering up a winsome smile that somehow sucks the breath right out of Faith. “To kill them . . . every last one of them.”  
  
“Do I  _look_  like someone who  _wouldn’t_  wanna kill stuff?” Faith snorts, all fake disdain and sarcasm, while her stomach flip-flops. “That was a gimme, Blondie, try again.”  
  
Blondie shrugs and backs deeper into the shadow-drenched alley--it’s like she’s being swallowed by darkness and for some reason, that unsettles Faith more than anything that’s happened since she got to town.  
  
“You're standing at the mouth of Hell. And it's about to open,” Blondie says, her smile fading and the playful glint in her eyes gone. Faith absently wonders what it means when a woman--or what looks like a woman--stops smiling and the world gets a little it darker. “Don’t turn your back on it, Faith, you’ve gotta be ready.”  
  
“What for?”  
  
“The Harvest.”   
  
“The what--?” Faith shakes her head. “Who the fuck  _are_  you, lady, and what the fuck is the  _Harvest_?”   
  
That smile flashes once more, briefly, like a cheshire cat, and something small sails out of the darkness. Instinctively, Faith reaches out and catches it.   
  
It’s cardboard box, the kind that jewelry comes in.   
  
“I told you . . . I'm a friend.”   
  
“Yeah, well, maybe I made my quota of friends for today!” Faith calls after her. A throaty laugh echoes off the alley walls.  
  
Blondie’s voice seems to ring of the alley walls. “Didn’t say I was yours.”  
  
That sense of being watched--of being  _observed_  winks out so suddenly, it’s like a weight suddenly being lifted off Faith’s heart. And that’s the  _only_  reason her heart’s beating faster. Not those pale blue eyes, or pouty mouth--certainly not the smoky-sweet voice that was made for innuendos and wicked smiles--  
  
“I’m goin’ nuts,” she says to herself, stepping out of the alley. The night seems at once brighter and infinitely more menacing. She glances back into the alley, then at the box in her hand. She opens it.   
  
Inside is a plain silver cross on a silver chain.   
  
Debating on whether to throw it away, or take it home for Wes to examine, Faith tips the cross into her hand. It’s light and cool and reassuring.   
  
“Wearing possibly-enchanted jewelry I got from a stranger in an alley, and getting the down-low tinglies for two chicks I barely know. Yup. I’ve obviously stepped outside my damn mind.” She sighs, slipping the chain over her head and starts walking. By the time the metal warms against her skin, she can already hear music, and the carefree sounds of people unaware that they’re living on the Mouth of Hell.  
  


*

  
  
Once inside  _The Bronze_ , Willow is pretty easy to spot: a lone redhead wearing muted clothes in a sea of paired-off peacocks.   
  
She’s sitting at the bar, nursing a Coke and once she sees Faith, she waves her over.  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“Hey, Red.” Faith dead-eyes the girl sitting on the stool next to Willow’s, till she gets up and scurries away. Faith sits down, and watches the crowd ebb and flow like a human sea. “Hekyll and Jekyll showed up, yet?”  
  
“Xander went to the bathroom and Jesse’s--around here somewhere.”  
  
“I see . . . so, what’s the deal with those two?”  
  
“What deal?”  
  
“Well, usually, the only people that finish each other’s sentences are identical twins and couples. Jesse and Xander look nothing alike, if you follow me.”  
  
Willow’s eyes widen and her face turns bright red. “Xander and Jesse are just friends. We all are. I mean--Xander and I used to be a couple. Sorta. B-but we broke up.”  
  
“Oh, yeah? How come?”  
  
“He stole my Barbie.” Seeing Faith’s confused look, Willow elaborates. “We were five.”  
  
“Okay. . . .”  
  
Willow smiles a little, and shrugs. “We’re not really big daters--well, Jesse tries. He tries a  _lot_. But Xander happily embraces the single life and I. . . .”  
  
“You?”  
  
“Weeeeeell, when I'm with a boy I like, it's hard for me to say anything cool, or witty. Or at all. I--I can usually make a few vowel sounds, but then I have to go away.”  
  
“C’mon . . . you’re a pretty girl, wicked-smart, cool to hang with. You could get anyone you wanted. It can’t be  _that_ \--“ But Willow’s shaking her head no.  
  
“Oh, it is. I think guys are more interested in a girl who can actually talk.”  
  
Faith snorts. “You really  _haven't_  been out with a lotta guys.”  
  
“It's probably easy for  _you_  to get dates. I mean, you aren’t shy and bumble-y and lame. You wouldn’t freeze up if a cute boy said ‘hi’ to you”  
  
“Well, no. And that’s thanks to my philosophy--you wanna hear my philosophy?”  
  
“Sure!” And there’s Willow’s listening-face. Faith knows that if she had a pen and paper on her, Willow’d be taking notes.  
  
“Okay, here it goes . . .  _life is short._ ”  
  
Willow’s eyebrows shoot up, almost to her hairline. “‘Life is short’?”  
  
Faith grins. “Yup. Not original, I'll grant you, but true. Why waste time bein’ all shy and worrying about if gettin’ shot down? You gotta seize the moment, 'cause tomorrow--you might be vampire-chow!”  
  
“Wow, that's . . . extremely disturbing--but inspiring!”   
  
“Fuckin-a,” Faith agrees, looking around. A quick perusal of the upper levels and she spots someone who’s  _definitely_  out of place. Someone who scans the crowd restlessly, till his eyes light on her.   
  
 _I’ll bet Batman never had problems like this._  She sighs and gets up. “Uh, I'll be back in a few, don’t go anywhere.”  
  
Willow blushes and looks away. “It’s okay, Faith . . . you don’t have to come back.”  
  
“Hey.” When Willow meets her eyes again, Faith smiles. “I'll be back, Red.”  
  


*

  
  
“. . . my mom doesn't even  _get_  out of bed anymore. And the doctor says it's Epstein-Barr. I'm like, puh-leeez! It's chronic Hepatitis, or at least Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I mean,  _nobody_  cool has Epstein-Barr anymore--”  
  
“Hey, Cordelia!” Jesse interrupts when he’s tired of waiting for Cordelia to take a breath.  
  
“Oh, yay, it's my stalker.” She and Harmony trade glances.  
  
Jesse grins--which he knows makes him look twice as goofy as normal--but he can’t help it. The McNally grin is as irrepressible as a buoy, unfortunately. “You, uh--you look  _great!_ ”  
  
Aphrodisia and Aura laugh, and Cordelia rolls her eyes. “Well, I'm glad we had this little chat. Let’s not do it again, sometime.” She stands up and the Cordettes stand up with her. Jesse’s not stupid--knows he has no chance whatsoever, but it isn’t in him to give up.   
  
 _Persistence? Thy name is McNally--_  
  
“Hey--do you, uh--wanna dance?” He asks, already knowing the answer is gonna be the same as it’s been since they were in seventh grade.  
  
Cordelia looks him up and down, no doubt finding fault with everything she sees. “With you?”  
  
“Well, uh, yeah.”  
  
“Well, uh, no,” She says disdainfully, walking away. The crowd parts for her and the Cordettes like the Red Sea, then closes behind them.   
  
Jesse sighs.   
  
 _Rejected twice in one day by two different girls? Oh, yeah, I'm . . . on the prowl! Witness me prowling!_  
  


*

  
  
_I feel love with my friends  
I feel love in my songs   
If I could just hold love  
Then all the answers might come  
I said, oh, if we're all children of God   
And we just turned away  
I got a lack of belief  
I said a world without faith   
It's time we turn back around. . . ._  
  
“Partying with the jail-bait set, Wes? Kinda skeevy.”  
  
Wesley sighs. “Watching under-dressed children prance about is hardly my idea of fun. I'd much rather be at home with a cup of Bovril and my scrolls.”  
  
“You need a personality transplant, stat,” Faith says, chuckling.  
  
“I’m afraid any elective surgery will have to wait. I’ve had a breakthrough with that scroll I’ve been trying to translate for the past few months. There’s a reason this Hellmouth has become so active. Something bad is coming, something called--”  
  
“The Harvest.”   
  
Wesley gapes at his grinning charge. “How--”  
  
“Some stalker-y blonde chick told me on the way here. That mean something to you? 'Cause it don’t mean jack to me.”  
  
“ _Stalker-y blonde chick. . ._?”  
  
“Yeah; pale, petite. Drop-dead gorgeous in an I-wanna-wring-her-neck-while-I-fuck-her sorta way.”  
  
“Er . . . I see. Did she say anything else?”  
  
“Just the same old ‘Mouth of Hell’ yadda you’ve been saying.” Faith rolls her eyes.  
  
“Hmm.” Wesley frowns down at the surging crowd below them. The band finishes its song to wild applause. When they start their next song, he turns away, not wanting to mark the faces of children, all of whom may wind up very dead, very shortly unless his translations are very wrong.  
  
 _They throw themselves about, having fun--completely unaware of the dangerous forces that surrounds them . . . how I envy them,_  he thinks, the beginnings of yet another headache already throbbing behind his eyes.  
  
“Look, Wes--it’s not like this Harvest thing is gonna be the end of the world, right?” Faith leans against him and takes his arm. “Hey, buddy--you gonna believe everything you read in thousand-year old scrolls?”  
  
Wesley smiles a little. Faith’s a natural mimic, and for once, it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of Jenny, though he desperately wishes she were here. “Not everything, of course not, but in this case, incredulity may be a luxury neither of us can afford . . . you're sure you haven't been having the  _dreams_.”   
  
“The precognitive ones? Negatory, thank God. That’d be too freaky, even for--whoa! Check that shit out.” Faith leans over the railing. “Pale-face at the bar and get a look at that outfit! He’s not even  _trying_  to live in the now!”  
  
Wesley turns around, scans the crowd near the bar. Indeed, there is a pale young man chatting up a small redhead and they’re both laughing. Neither of them are dressed particularly well, but the young man. . . . “His clothing  _is_  somewhat dated.”   
  
“Try carbon-dated, Wes!”  
  
Always trust a Slayer’s instincts. And fashion sense. “Then perhaps we’d better get down there before he talks that young girl into leaving with him.”  
  
“I’m on it, Wes, I--shit.  _Shit_! That’s no girl, that’s  _Willow_.”   
  
It only takes Wesley a moment to place the name, and when he does, he smiles. “Your friend from school?”  
  
But Faith’s already shoving through the crowd, trying to get to the stairway. Wesley follows in her wake, the music throbbing in time to his almost-headache.  
  
 _Oh, dear, please don’t let this be another Benny . . . or worse, another Pike. After all that’s happened, I don’t think Faith could take another loss so soon--_  
  
By the time he gets to the bar, Willow and the vampire are gone. So is Faith.  
  


*

  
  
_We're formed in liquid  
Pushed out still dripping  
A world was thrown before my eyes  
Now paint a picture  
Crayon stick figures  
With blue-haired people, purple skies. . . ._  
  
One hand on the stake in her jacket pocket, Faith stalks down the hall that leads to the bathrooms. That eery song follows her every step of the way, wratcheting up her nerves.   
  
So when a door swings open just as she passes it, Faith turns and has Cordelia slammed up against the wall before it registers that, evil or not, the girl’s not a vampire.  
  
“Oh, it’s you.”   
  
Cordelia squirms in the death-grip Faith has on her arms. “God! What is your childhood trauma?!  
  
“Have you seen Willow?” Realizing that a whole gaggle of privilege princesses are watching her from the doorway of the ladies’ room, Faith lets go of Cordelia. “Did Willow come by here?”  
  
Cordelia rubs her arms and sidles along the wall to the safety of her pack. “Why? Do you need to slam  _her_  into a wall, too?”  
  
Cordelia and her pack of princesses disappear into the bathroom, some of them giggling. Faith hears the word  _lawsuit_  and rolls her eyes.  
  
“Brats,” she growls half-heartedly. Then kicks a hole in the wall for good measure. “Fuck, fuck,  _fuck!_ ”  
  
She runs down the hallway, past some broken chairs, some garbage bags and a small, darkened alcove where two people are talking quietly.   
  
She has no idea where the vamp might have taken Willow, but when all else fails--  
  
Check the cemeteries.  
  


*

  
  
“. . . get a bite to eat?”  
  
“What was that?” Xander asks absently, wondering if the girl that just blew past them was Faith, and if so . . . why she was in such a rush.   
  
Then he shakes his head. Part of one lunch period spent hanging out with Faith and he’s already of the opinion that nothing short of armageddon could make  _that_  girl run. Probably just his eyes playing tricks on him.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
Cool, gentle fingers touch Xander’s and he shivers, looking up into dark, shadowed eyes again.   
  
“Do you wanna go someplace quiet, where we can talk . . . get a bite to eat?”  
  
“I--we--whuh? Why?”   
  
The guy--who’d materialized out of nowhere as Xander was exiting the bathroom--smiles; and what a smile. Damn near the best smile ever. Xander doesn’t even remember what they’ve been talking about, or how, for that matter, they wound up in one of  _The Bronze_ ’s many make-out spots. But he knows he’ll remember that smile till the day he dies.  
  
“Because I like you.” The guy’s voice is husky and he leans even closer. Xander reminds himself that breathing is of the good.  
  
 _And the trick to breathing,_  he thinks giddily,  _is not to look the devastatingly hot guy, with the devastatingly hot accent directly in his devastatingly hot eyes._    
  
“But--we just met! We can’t just jump to being best hang-out-and-discuss-our-lives-over-flavored-coffee buds! We don’t even know each other’s names!”   
  
“Tell me your name then, beautiful boy.”  
  
 _Wow, his eyes are really dark and did he just call me_ beautiful? “Alexander Lavelle Harris,” spills out with no permission whatsoever from Xander’s brain. And his knees are doing their best to change from solid to liquid.  
  
“Angelus.” The guy takes Xander’s hand and squeezes it lightly, doesn’t let go.   
  
“Yeah, you are,” Xander exhales. Then proceeds to die of mortification. “I mean--is that, like, Irish, or something.”  
  
“Or something,” Angelus agrees, and Xander laughs. Though he’s not feeling the wackiness, so much as the surreality. He’s pretty sure Angelus is hitting on him.   
  
 _I’m no expert, but when a guy calls you beautiful, refuses to let go of your hand and is giving you_ the look _\--expert analyses? Are so not required._  
  
“Uh . . . do you hang around  _The Bronze_  much?” Realizing how lame that sounds, Xander blushes. “I mean--I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around.”  
  
And the lameness continues. But Angelus doesn’t seem to mind, doesn’t seem to be losing interest. In the dark of the hall, his skin is so pale it almost seems to glow.  
  
“No, I’m not from around here. I’m staying with family.”  
  
“Really? What’s their name? Maybe our families know each other.” Though Xander heartily hopes Angelus’s family hasn’t had the displeasure of running across any of the Harrises.  
  
“Oh, you don’t know my family, yet.” Angelus laughs, reaching up to brush Xander’s hair out of his face, then drifting down his face to his neck. His cool fingertips rest on Xander’s pulse, making him shiver and step closer. “But I’d like you to.”  
  
“You would?” Thinking shouldn’t be this hard--even for Xander--and he should be asking about a billion questions, like  _how did you know I’m gay?_  But a large, selfish,  _Harris-y_  part of him keeps his mouth shut, just in case it wrecks the moment.  
  
So Angelus leans closer and closer, and Xander’s eyes slip shut.  
  
 _\--what am I doing I am gay so very gay gonna kiss me wrong should be Jesse what if someone sees us oh my god can’t believe I’m kissing a guy oh GOD his lips are so his tongue is that his TONGUE and I am so. Damn._ Gay--  
  
Then Xander’s brain is in shutdown mode. There’s no more thinking, no more mental babble. Only cool hands sliding under his shirt, a cool (coppery?) tongue exploring his mouth, and the hot throb of every deciliter of blood in his body flowing straight to his groinal area with no stop-overs.  
  
And though this isn’t the most romantic of environments (the dusty, dimly lit stretch of hallway between the bathrooms and the back door) or the most romantic of atmospheres (redolent of garbage, ammonia and old grease) and though it’s not with Jesse ( _love you, Jess_. . . . ) Xander’s first real kiss is very, very much of the wow.  
  
When Angelus finally lets him up for air, Xander has to relearn a love of oxygen. After the kiss, oxygen is about as subtle and sweet as a mud-splattered brick.  
  
“Come with me, Alexander,” Angelus whispers on Xander’s lips, playful, barely-there emphasis on the word  _come_. Xander’s knees try to go liquid on him again, but strong arms are holding him, and holding him up.  
  
“‘Kay.”   
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is . . . the Slayer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See previous chapters for notes and disclaimers.

“Boy, it sure is dark, huh?”   
  
“It's night.” Thomas pulls Willow along faster, not looking back when she stumbles trying to keep up.   
  
“Well, that's a dark time, night. Traditionally speaking,” Willow babbles, her unease cranking up a notch. Going with Thomas had seemed like such a good idea back in  _The Bronze_. Seizing the moment had been as sensible as--as a good pair of Oxfords. But seizing the moment isn’t making so much with the sense, anymore. “I still can't believe I've never seen you at school. Do you have Mr. Chomsky for history?”  
  
Thomas doesn’t even bother to answer, nor does he slow down when Willow stumbles again.  
  
“Um, are you sure the ice cream bar is  _this_  way?” She asks when she really looks around at where they are; Lafayette Road right outside of  _Shady Rest_  Cemetery. “It's no where near here.”  
  
“I know a shortcut.”  
  
Then he’s pulling her after him even faster, and into  _Shady Rest_.  
  
Willow is starting to seriously distrust moments, and the seizing of them.  
  


*

  
  
“Hey, when’d you get here?”  
  
Waylaid for the second time, just out the back door of  _The Bronze_ , Faith spots Jesse sitting on a dumpster. “I’m lookin’ for Willow--have you seen her?”  
  
“Nah.” Jesse slides off the dumpster. “Not for the past twenty minutes.”  
  
“Damn! She left with this shifty looking guy and I’m kinda worried--”  
  
“We're talking about  _Willow_ , right?” Jesse grins and for a moment, Faith wants to slam his skinny ass against the dumpster then beat the crap out of him. “Scorin' at  _The Bronze_? Work it girl. . . .”   
  
 _Civilian . . . civilian, goddamnit_ , Faith reminds herself, trying not to grind her teeth or scream.  
  
“No, I  _have_  to find her. This guy she was with . . . he’s nothin’ but bad news.”  
  
Curiosity and amusement; Jesse’s watching her like she’s  _Dallas_. “Oh, really?”   
  
“Yeah, really.”  
  
Faith is already stalking away, trying to remember which cemetery would be closest to  _The Bronze_ \-- _Shady Rest_ , or maybe  _Pine View_ \--when Jesse drops a bomb that stops her dead in her tracks.   
  
“Gee, I hope he's not a vampire, 'cause then you might have to slay him.”  
  


*

  
  
She stops, turns to look at Jesse.   
  
She looks so pissed off, he takes a step back. Then another, just in case. But Faith just starts tugging on her hair and pacing, short angry yanks and short angry steps.  
  
“Was there a town meeting, or something? Was it in the newspaper? Is there anyone in this freakin’ town that  _doesn't_  know I'm the Slayer?”  
  
Jesse decides that a third step back maybe isn’t such a bad idea when confronting the crazy, stake-carrying ‘vampire slayer’. “Uh, I only know that you  _think_  you're the Slayer. And the only reason I know  _that_  is cuz--”  
  
“Whatever.” Faith cuts off his babble and her own nervous pacing with a curt word and a steely look. The only person he’s ever known with that sort of determined, hard,  _intense_  gaze is his Uncle Aaron.  
  
And though he doubts  _Faith_  was in Vietnam, he has to wonder, for a second, who and how old Faith really is. . . .  
  
“Which cemetery is closer to  _The Bronze_ \-- _Pine View_  or  _Shady Rest_?”   
  
She’s impatient and Jesse’s lost the thread of the conversation in a moment of pure vertigo. “Huh?”  
  
Faith grabs him by his shirt and yanks him close, her dark, soldier’s eyes boring into his own. She smells like hairspray, chewing gum and smoke. “The nearest cemetery, Jess, unless you want Willow to be one more dead body come morning.”  
  
“You can’t be  _serious_!  
  
But that Uncle Aaron-look shines ever more brightly in her eyes--even sets itself in the muscles of her face.  
  
“Look, this is--this crazy! There’s no such thing--”  
  
She shakes him, like a terrier would shake a rat it’d caught in its jaws: hard enough to rattle teeth and bones. “Right hand to God, I will beat you featureless if you don’t stop getting in my way. The cemetery?”  
  
And the shaking intensifies enough for Jesse to realize Faith is  _way_  stronger than most girls, and her annoyance has mutated into cold anger.  
  
“ _Shady Rest! Shady Rest, you psycho!_ ” He’s barely even gotten the first  _Rest_  out before Faith shoves him to the side and takes off, presumably for the cemetery.  
  
Jesse wants to double over, laughing and shivering for breath, but the vertigo hits again, like a sucker-punch to the gut.   
  
There’s no such thing as vampires, and anyone who thinks they slay vampires for a living has gotta be batshit-insane. Anyone who  _believe_  someone who thinks they slay vampires for a living would have to be batshit-insane and gullible, to boot.  
  
But it’s  _Willow_. . . .  
  
Jesse stumbles after Faith, dread hollowing him out and making him lurch into a panicked run.  
  


*

  
  
“Okay, th-this is nice . . . and scary. A-are you sure this is faster?” Willow asks as they stop at a mausoleum.  
  
Thomas grins at her almost charmingly. A complete one-eighty from, oh, five seconds ago. “Hey! Ever been in one of these?”  
  
When she realizes he means the mausoleum, Willows tries to pull her hand free. “Um, no. Thank you, but no. It’s getting really late.”  
  
“Come on--what are you afraid of?” Thomas squeezes her wrist so hard she squeaks in pain.   
  
“Let go of me!”  
  
“Sorry, can’t do that.” He pulls her close, pressing his nose against her neck and inhaling deeply. Then he’s yanking the mausoleum door open and shoving her forward. She stumbles and nearly falls down three shallow steps. Thomas follows her in and when she turns to ask him what the heck he thinks he’s doing, his face . . .  _changes_.  
  
“Oh, God,” she moans, backing away from him till her back hits a huge sepulcher, which she quickly steps around, only to trip on a pile of stony rubble. He rolls his eyes, which are now yellow and slitted, like cat’s-eyes.  
  
“You really should watch where you’re going. You could get hurt, you know?”  
  
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but--th-this isn’t funny! You have to let me go!”  
  
“Oh, is  _that_  what I have to do?” Thomas mocks, then he darts forward to grab her. Willow dodges around him with a yelp, running for the exit, his laughter echoing in the enclosed space.   
  
Just as she reaches the exit, some _thing_ \--huge and dark, with the same golden eyes and messed-up face--fills the doorway. Moving too fast to stop herself, she slams right into it and rebounds--would’ve fallen on her ass, but the big thing grabs her by her neck and shakes her, like terrier shakes a rat.  
  
“Christ, Thomas, is  _this_  the best you could do?” The thing steps inside, dropping Willow like she’s garbage. Despite the jarring pain, she scrambles backwards till she hits the sepulcher. The thing eyes her disinterestedly. “Not much to her, is there?”  
  
“Says you. Where’s yours?” Thomas walks past Willow. She flinches away from him, but he doesn’t notice.  
  
“Oh . . . he’ll be along any second, now.” The big thing nods back the way it came, smirking. “And there’s a fair sight more to him than your pasty, little slip of a morsel.”  
  
“Hey . . . wait up. . . .” a weak, familiar voice calls from outside, and Willow gasps.   
  
“Xander?!”  
  
Xander stumbles down the mausoleum steps past the two smirking men, paper-pale and dazed-looking. Willow’s barely fast enough, barely strong enough to catch him when he collapses.  
  
“Gave . . . gave me a hickey, ‘Gelus. . . .” Xander murmurs, and his eyes roll up into his head. He sags to the floor, taking Willow with him.  
  
The big one--Angelus--chuckles darkly, wiping the corners of his mouth. “Well . . . there  _was_  more to him--but I just got so  _hungry_ on the way here.”  
  
Willow’s horrified, confused and certain of one thing: if they don’t make it out of the crypt five seconds ago, they’re going to die. She shakes Xander hard, slaps his pale, cold face. “Wake up, Xander--we have to get outta here!”   
  
Angelus sighs, all fake sympathy. “Apologies, kids; you're not goin' anywhere--”  
  
“Well, isn’t this cozy? Kinda spartan for my taste, but get some area rugs, a few throw pillows--and I’m seein’ the appeal.”  
  


*

  
  
Faith steps into the crypt slowly, confidently, a panting, exhausted Jesse on her heels.  
  
Willow is crouching against the sepulcher, tears in her eyes and Xander’s head in her lap. He’s still breathing, but barely conscious.   
  
Jesse starts to go to them, but Faith blocks him with an arm like a slim iron bar.  
  
“Well, well . . . who have we here?” The big thing-- _vampire, that’s a vampire_ , Jesse thinks--asks, like some villain straight out of _DC_  comics. The smaller vampire, who’s stylin’ like DeBarge, growls at Faith.  
  
“You mean there's someone in this town who  _doesn't_  already know?” Faith laughs. “That’d be a first?”  
  
“Uh . . . Faith, we bail, now, right?” Jesse asks, wondering if they can find a phone and call the cops in time to save Willow and Xander, ‘cause there’s no  _way_  they can take on both of these things.  
  
“I don’t think so.” The smaller vampire says, stepping toward her menacingly. Maybe it’s just the outfit, but suddenly, he’s about as menacing as a wet kitten. It’s the big vampire that has Jesse worried. He’s too quiet, too . . . wary.   
  
Faith, however, not only seems unworried, but Jesse can almost feel the waves of aggressive joy pouring off of her.   
  
 _She’s getting off on this--she’s fucking batshit and vampires_ do _exist! Wills, Xan--oh, God. . . ._  
  
“Look, friend, we can do this the hard way--violence, strong language, adult content, or--” Faith takes a confident step forward. “Actually, there's just the hard way.”   
  
“That's fine with me!” DeBarge launches himself at her and Faith moves so fast, Jesse can’t even follow what she does. But a second later, DeBarge is drifting to her feet in a shower of dust.   
  
Faith turns to the remaining vampire, who’s watching her with narrowed yellow eyes.   
  
“You see? That’s what happens when you rough-house,” she tsks.   
  
“Thomas was young and stupid.” The big vampire stalks slowly towards her. “I’m neither.”  
  
“Well, I’m ready for a go, if you are, handsome.”  
  
“Oh, shit,” Jesse moans and for a few awful seconds, Big Vamp’s attention is on him, marking him, remembering him. “Shit, shit, _shit_ \--”  
  
“Take your friends and am-scray, Jess!” Distracted annoyance, again. Whether it’s because he should’ve gotten Willow and Xander out before she had to take a moment and tell him, or because she’s so juiced for fighting this  _thing_  and hates interruptions, Jesse couldn’t say.  
  
“Don’t go far, lad--I’m still kinda peckish.” The vamp laughs and then he’s  _moving_ , and Faith’s  _moving_ , blurs of color and sound that collide with an audible crash.  
  
Jesse shakes himself, and hurries over to Willow. Between the two of them, they get Xander upright and out of the crypt.  
  
Faith can take care of herself.   
  
He hopes.  
  


*

  
  
“I just wanted to live out my life” punch. “Put in my time on the Hellmouth” spin-kick. “Do the hero thing, until some big nasty finally punches my ticket” parry, block. “You know?”  
  
Faith slams the big vampire into the wall, just like she slammed Cordelia. Oddly, it isn’t quite as satisfying.  
  
Maybe if she beats him a little harder. . . .  
  
“Bitch!” The big-vamp growls as she rams his head into the wall. “Who are you?  
  
She gives him a kidney punch that would’ve killed a human. “C’mon, dead-boy, can’t you figure it out?”  
  
Suddenly, a hand closes around Faith’s throat from behind, lifting her off the ground; cold lips press against her ear.   
  
“I. Don't. Care.”  
  


*

  
  
The girl hits the wall hard and slides down, dazed and moaning.   
  
“You were supposed to be bringing an offering for the Master.”  
  
Angelus swipes at the blood on his face and glares at Luke. “Piss off, Luke. I’m doin’ business, here, if you don’t mind, and even if you do--” he starts forward, meaning to finish off the girl, but Luke grabs his arm in an iron grip. Cold, pale blue eyes size Angelus up and, as always, find him lacking.  
  
“The Harvest is about to begin, and you dally with this child?”  
  
“Well, we can’t all of us can spend our time lickin’ the Master’s arse, can we? Some of us actually have things to do, like fight and hunt--”  
  
Luke’s fingers bite into Angelus’s arm and gold flares in his eyes. “Remember who you’re speaking to, boy.”  
  
Angelus yanks his arm away, but holds his peace. For all of five seconds.  
  
“Look, she dusted Thomas and tried to do the same to me. She’s strong . . .  _really_  strong,” Angelus says speculatively, watching from the corner of his eyes as the girl pulls herself upright.   
  
Luke follows his gaze contemptuously. “Go, recapture the offerings. I'll take care of this child who threatens the great Angelus.”  
  
Inwardly seething, Angelus obeys, casting one last glance at the girl. She’s weaving a bit, but her dark eyes are angry, focused, her muscles wound tight and ready to spring.  
  
Ready to die, is more likely; Angelus doesn’t envy her, doesn’t wish her anything like  _luck_. . . .  
  
But he hopes she dusts the pompous prick.  
  


*

  
  
Two minutes into the fight and not only is Luke still undusted, but Faith has dropped her stake.  
  
Even when she manages to block his mack-truck punches, they still hurt like a mother. But she rallies--delivers a snap-kick to his face. He takes it on the chin, seemingly unfazed.  
  
“You  _are_  strong,” he notes, almost approvingly. Then, like magic, Faith is sailing through the air and over the sepulcher, thanks to a backhand like a wrecking-ball.  
  
“But I'm stronger.”  
  
 _And I’m in no shape to argue the point,_  Faith thinks as she picks herself up yet again. Luke approaches, big, machine-like and relentless.  
  
“You're wasting my time, girl.”   
  
“Hey, I had other plans, too, okay?” Faith edges along the wall, trying to keep the sepulcher between them and wondering if she can get past him, out of the crypt. Maybe outside she’d actually have a fighting chance.  
  
Luke shoves the sepulcher lid at Faith and she only barely dodges it, vaulting over the edge of the sepulcher, kicking at Luke’s chest with both feet. He staggers, and she sees a glimmer of a chance at survival: she makes a lunge for her stake--  
  
Luke gets it first, snapping it like a twig.  
  
“Who the fuck  _are_  you, the Terminator?” Faith can hear desperation in her own voice, and knows Luke hears it, too.   
  
He smiles fleetingly, dropping the useless bits of wood. “You think you can stop me? Stop  _us_?”  
  
Us _? Does this mean this mean there’s a whole coven of vamps like him?_  Faith edges right, away from the exit. It’s lame, as far as tricky distractions go, but all she’s got, at the moment. “Us being--?”  
  
Luke laughs and moves toward her right. Faith knows it’s a feint, but has to try, anyway: she makes a dash for the exit--plenty of trees outside, plenty of sharp pointies for slayage, she’s definitely not running scared--Luke grabs her by her jacket and lifts her off the ground.  
  
 _He’s that fast,_  she thinks, almost giddy with despair.  
  
“You have no idea what you're dealing with,” he hisses in her face, all spooky-monotone and blood-breath. Faith can’t help the laugh that bubbles up.  
  
“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say . . . evil?”  
  
Luke tosses her like a rag doll. She hits the rim of the sepulcher--spine first-- _hard_ , and falls to the floor a limp, aching pile of Slayer.   
  
“'And like a plague of boils, the race of man covered the Earth.'”   
  
Luke’s voice booms ominously off the walls of the crypt and the walls of Faith’s skull as she tries to sit up. Her vision is a blur of bright and dark.  
  
“'But on the third day of the newest light would come the Harvest. And the blood of men will flow as wine. And the Master will walk among them once more!'”  
  
Faith’s vision clears between one blink and the next, and Luke is looming above her, his hard, empty eyes flashing yellow. He grabs her by the throat again and lifts her up. Pain shoots through her body, spreading out from her head and her back; so sharp and bright that it almost drowns out his next words.  
  
“'The Earth will belong to the old ones . . . and Hell itself will come to town’.”  
  
He drops her into the open sepulcher--onto someone’s  _remains_ \--like discarded trash. For a minute, all she can do is breathe, and will herself not to lose consciousness. To lose consciousness is to lose her life.  
  
Though she’s probably about to lose it, anyway.  
  
The crypt is silent, but for the harsh sounds of her own breathing and heartbeat. Though she tries to quiet both, she can’t hear him moving. She can’t lay there forever, and as soon as she’s ready to risk sitting up, Luke lands on top of her, pinning her arms at her side. He’s smiling now, and in gameface.  
  
“Amen!” He growls, lunging at Faith’s neck  
  
He immediately hisses in pain and jerks away.  
  
 _Whoa, that wasn’t in the script. What the_ hell _\--the cross! Blondie’s cross! Sonuvabitch, she just saved my ass!_  
  
The thought brings a smile to her face and gives her something like a second wind. For the first time since the big bruiser grabbed her, Faith is starting to believe she might get out of this alive.  
  
With all her remaining strength, she grabs him and, for a nice change of pace, tosses  _him_  off of  _her_. He lands with a grunt and Faith’s up as fast as she can, which isn’t very. She climbs--half falls out of the sepulcher. Luke’s already standing up, glaring and in gameface, now.   
  
 _Uh-oh, someone’s angry,_ Faith thinks, just as a girl’s scream rises over the sound of Luke’s snarling.   
  
 _Willow’s_  scream.  
  
“Sorry--we’ll have to pick this up later!” Faith dodges past Luke and out of the crypt, sure he’ll be right on behind her.  
  
One quick, backward glance shows nothing but gravestones and moonlight.  
  
An angry roar cuts through the night, followed by another scream, and Faith speeds toward it. She hurts all over--hurts like an overnight hospital stay--but she runs toward the scream.  
  


*

  
  
“Gonna stop a minute,” Xander says, slowing down. The hands tugging him along squeeze and prod him ceaselessly. “I seriously can’t run anymore.”   
  
“Come on, Xan, just a little farther and we’ll be safe. The police station’s not far. Just a few blocks. You just have to. . . .” Jesse trails off and Xander’s not sure what Jesse thinks he has to do, but he can’t imagine it won’t wait till the morning, after he’s gotten some shut-eye.   
  
Because they must not understand just how  _wrecked_  he is. If he could just make them see, maybe they'll let him take a breather against one of these headstones--  
  
 _Headstones . . . there’s something inherently wrong with that sentence. . . ._  
  
Xander looks around, now.  _Really_  looks around. The world spins violently and he closes his eyes, stone cold and shuddering. “Um . . . graveyard, guys. . . .”  
  
“Yeah, no shit!” Jesse snaps, hurrying Xander into an uncoordinated jog. Xander not only lets himself be hurried, but helps with the hurrying. His legs are weak, rubbery, unresponsive.  
  
“We’ve gotta move faster!” Willow’s tugging on him so hard he nearly falls; it sounds like she’s crying. “Those things are gonna  _kill_ us!”  
  
“Things?” Xander tries to remember  _things_ , but only remembers Angelus pushing him against a tree just outside of  _Shady Rest_. He remembers. . . .  
  
 _. . . eyes winking gold-brown, and a smile as bright and sharp as blade.  
  
Angelus leans into kiss him briefly, then nuzzles his neck. Only the nuzzling involves a few too many teeth, and piercing pain that makes Xander gasp “no” and get hard simultaneously.   
  
Then Angelus is unzipping Xander’s pants and shoving his hand in . . . cool, tight and perfect as he sends Xander into the stratosphere.  
  
Xander’s subsequent return to Earth find him all zipped up and tucked away, being hustled through what looks like a _graveyard _. His body is still hyper-sensitive, still hyper-_ responsive _, and even Angelus's lightest, most reassuring touches are pleasure-bordering-pain.  
  
Xander would squirm away, if he had the strength or desire to.   
  
His desires lead in another direction, entirely, it would seem.  
  
So he staggers along, something warm and sluggish trickling down his tingling, aching neck . . . something Angelus frequently pulls him close to lick and suck away.   
  
_Almost there, Alexander _, he murmurs on Xander's neck, all rumbling voice and stinging, prickly kisses. Or:_ only a little further, now, sweet boy, _as his lips and tongue ghost over Xander's throat. When he smiles at Xander, even in the cemetery gloom, his lips are very, very red . . ._  
  
“I think--and I could be wrong, here--I think my date is a, um, vampire,” Xander groans. That’s when the roaring starts, and the hands tugging him along disappear.  
  
A vampire is dragging Willow toward the exit and two more have Jesse pinned to the ground. Arms like iron bands wind around Xander and he’s hefted off the ground. He can barely breathe, let alone flail.  
  
Suddenly, the most welcome voice  _ever_  rises above the struggle.   
  
“Get the fuck off them!”  
  
Jesse’s vampires look up, just in time to be tackled. One immediately gets it in the chest with what looks like a broken-off tree limb, collapsing into a pile of dust; the other rolls to its feet and tries to run back the way it’d come.   
  
Faith lobs the tree limb and nails him in the back.   
  
The second vampire explodes into dust, and the one holding Xander drops him like a hot rock and launches itself at Faith, snarling. Without the fear of impending death to keep him upright, Xander sags numbly toward the ground.  
  
He falls forever, it feels like. Through the Faith’s rage, through Jesse’s screams--through himself.   
  
Only to be caught up in someone’s arms, hauled up and held close.  
  
"Beautiful boy,” that someone purrs in his ear. Then he’s being turned, with no shortage of groping. Golden eyes gaze down at him from a disturbingly handsome monster-face; they’re a stable focus in a still-shifting world.  
  
“Angelus . . . please. . . .” Xander shivers, torn between trying to get away and trying to burrow even closer.  
  
“Bat-face’d skin me if I brought him a . . . sullied offering. Or even a childe as pretty as you’d make, Alexander,” Angelus sighs, then steals a quick, sharp-edged kiss. “But you’ve got my mark on you, boy. Remember: there’s nowhere in this world you can go that I won’t find you.”  
  
Another kiss, slow and deep; what little air it leaves in his lungs is knocked out of him when he hits the ground . . .  _hard_.   
  
Sharp pain in his head, dull pain everywhere else, and the world greys out.  
  
The taste of Xander’s own blood follows him into soft, cold semi-darkness, along with Jesse’s hoarse gasps:  
  
 _“Faith! They got Willow! One of those things got Willow!”_


	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is . . . the Slayer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See previous chapters for notes and disclaimers.

Midnight finds Wesley, yet again, in the unenviable position of having to explain to shell-shocked teenagers how the world  _really_ works.   
  
At least this time it’s in the comfort of his own livingroom, rather than the cellar of an abandoned church.  
  
“This world is older than either of you know,” he begins hesitantly. Two pairs of dark eyes stare at him from pale, young faces.   
  
He sighs and takes off his glasses for a quick polishing. Three years and a continent apart have done little to erase certain . . . habits he’d picked up from his mentor.   
  
“Contrary to popular mythology, our world did not begin as a paradise. For untold eons demons walked the Earth. Old Ones, who made it their home, their . . . Hell. But in time they lost their purchase on this reality. The way was made for mortal animals, for man. All that remains of these Old Ones are vestiges--certain magicks, certain . . . creatures--”  
  
“And vampires,” Faith adds, shifting in her recliner to accommodate bruised ribs and a still aching back. Nervous energy surrounds her in a near tangible field. Her eyes tick from Wesley, to the boys, lingering guiltily on them before ticking back to Wesley. “Can’t forget the leeches, Wes.”  
  
“Yes, I was getting to those.” He’d long ago stopped trying to hide his fondness for her, but in the wake of this past night, the fondness is laced with concern he couldn’t have hidden, had he been so inclined. “Vampires are among most dangerous of the remnants that walk this Earth, if only for their ability to blend in with the living.”  
  
“Yeah . . . wouldn’t it be real neat if there was a girl--just  _one_  girl in all the world with nifty preternatural dreams and senses? With the ability to spot leeches in her sleep? Before they kidnap her friends? Wouldn’t that be super?”  
  
Faith’s tone is light and conversational, but that lost look is still on her face, the one Wesley hasn’t seen since Lothos took Jenny.  
  
 _I got my ass handed to me tonight. Again,_  it says, echoing what Faith herself had said earlier, as she stalked into the house, carrying a bitten, and barely conscious boy. The other boy had scurried in in her wake, his eyes darting fearfully into every corner.  
  
The young girl who’d been taken-- _Willow_ , had been noticeably absent.  
  
“This is unreal,” Jesse exhales, his voice rough and low. Next to him, the other boy, the one who’d been bitten-- _Xander_  Wesley corrects himself when his brain supplies a helpful  _Alexander_ \--has been watching and listening without apparent interest. It’s something of a shock when his ashen lips move and sound emerges.  
  
“Vampires are demons.”   
  
It’s not a question. Frowning, Wesley nods slowly. “Yes.”   
  
Xander’s reaches up, brushing shaky hands over his bandage and shuddering. “I’ll see that unreal, Jess, and raise you a please-let-me-be-having-a-nervous-breakdown.”  
  
A brief, pained laugh from Jesse. “No takers, Xand-man. I fold.”  
  
The bandage glows whitely in the soft lamplight, and in contrast to Xander’s absently stroking fingers. Under it, the bite mark--which will scar rather ostentatiously--has stopped bleeding, but the area around the bandage is still red and irritated.   
  
The faraway, almost wistful look on Xander’s face makes Wesley’s scalp prickle, and an unpleasant suspicion begins to take shape in the back of his brain, just out reach of his conscious mind. . . .  
  
Xander shudders again, whipping his hand away to tuck it between his knees. When he flinches and lowers his eyes, Wesley realizes he’s been staring holes into the boy.  
  
“So where’d vampires come from, anyways?” Jesse demands suddenly, oblivious to both staring and flinching. But Wesley can feel Faith’s gaze flicker between himself and Xander.  
  
He looks away and clears his throat. “Er--according to the histories, the last Old One to leave this reality fed off a human, mixed their blood. The human was possessed, infected by the demon's . . . soul, for lack of better word. This possessed human bit another, and another, and so they walk the Earth, feeding . . . killing some, mixing their blood with others to make more of their kind. Waiting for the animals to die out, and the Old Ones to return.”  
  
Jesse frowns. “And these animals would be--?”   
  
Faith snorts, and Wesley doesn’t have to look at her to see the  _what-do-you-think_  look on her face.   
  
“Okay.” Xander is still very pale, but there are hectic red circles on his cheeks. “I’m having a problem: we're getting an ancient history lesson, when Willow has been  _kidnapped_  by fucking  _vampires_  . . . does anyone else find the history lesson problematic? They could be vampifying her, right now!”  
  
“ _Turning_ ,” Faith mutters, but Wesley’s the only one who notices.  
  
“Xan’s right, I mean--we should be out trying to find her.” Jesse puts his arm around Xander and doesn’t notice when the other boy cringes away, ever so slightly. That barely-formed suspicion tickles the back of Wesley’s mind once more.  
  
“And where would you suggest we start looking?” He asks quietly. Jesse visibly deflates, but Xander sits forward impatiently.  
  
“Well, how about the cemetery we just left?” His voice is colored with impatience and frustration. “Or how ‘bout any of the other fifty goddamn cemeteries within the town limits! Christ,  _anything_ ’d be better than sitting around here while Wills is alone and frightened--or maybe  _dying_ \--”  
  
“Xan--chill, or you’re gonna pass out again,” Jesse murmurs, pulling Xander close again. Xander stiffens, but lets himself be held. “You know they’re not gonna still be at  _Shady Rest_ , or some other boneyard, just waiting for us to show up like Vampbusters.”   
  
The look Jesse turns on Faith and then Wesley is pathetically hopeful. “Is there even a tiny chance that these things  _aren’t_ vampires? Maybe they’re just a bunch of guys with messed up faces who--like to drink blood. . . .”  
  
“You gotta be fucking kidding me.” Faith finally reclines her lounger with a sigh of relief. “So those weren’t vampires that grabbed Willow, but cannibals in wicked need of a facial? Or maybe they had rabies! Yeah, that’s the ticket! And that guy turning to dust? Just a trick of the light!” Another snort. “Get real, man.”   
  
“Define ‘real’.” Despite the exquisitely-honed sarcasm, Jesse sounds defeated. “Real as in--blood-sucking demons walking among us, totally unnoticed by, oh, say,  _everyone_?”   
  
“Real as in  _real_.” Xander shrugs off Jesse’s arm and looks him in the eyes. “You saw those guys. They weren’t human.”  
  
“Xan--”  
  
“Look, Jess.” He peels back his bandage, revealing the bite. It’s beginning to scab over, but the area around it is angry and sore. Faith and Jesse flinch, but Wesley merely wonders.   
  
 _Not drained, or simply killed, but . . . marked. In which case, the vampire that bit him had no intention of killing him tonight. Or at least no intention of letting him_ stay dead _. Oh, Lord. . . ._  
  
Xander replaces the bandage carefully, not breaking eye contact with Jesse. “Vampires are real. And every moment we waste _debating_  that is a moment we could be using to figure out where they took Wills and how to get her back.”  
  
“Xan, those things--they’re strong.” Jesse’s voice trebles up from rational adult, to frightened teen, and he looks to Wesley for back-up. “ _Sabertooth_  strong! Tell him, dude! We wouldn't even stand a chance!”  
  
“Thankfully, for Willow’s sake,  _we_  don’t need to,” Wesley says, and turns to look at his Slayer.  
  


*

  
  
Just before dawn, Angelus stalks into the Master’s “lair”.   
  
He’s left to wait awhile as the Master praises a minion--Missy, newly-risen--for bringing him a particularly pure offering. Ten minutes after Angelus’s arrival, the young minion bounces past him and out of the chamber, carrying a toddler’s drained corpse. It bears a remarkable resemblance to Missy.  
  
 _Show-off,_  Angelus thinks, schooling his face into something respectful when the Master turns to him.  
  
“Angelus, you’ve returned somewhat later than usual. And without an offering.” The lack of surprise--lack of disappointment, as if Angelus and failure are synonymous--rankles. But Angelus remains outwardly impassive.  
  
“There was . . . trouble in the cemetery. I didn’t want to draw it down here after me. I thought it better to lay low till things cooled off.”  
  
“Ah . . . Luke mentioned that some little girl gave you trouble. . .?”  
  
Angelus glares at Luke, repressing the urge to bare his fangs in challenge. Quite aside from the fact that Luke has strength and status second only to the Master, to initiate a brawl for dominance would be taken as an insult  _by_  the Master.   
  
Angelus can’t afford to be on bat-face’s shit-list.   
  
So he settles for a penitent face and flat tone. “Not as much trouble as she gave Luke, from the look of him.” He nudges the unconscious girl at the Master’s feet. “Pickings were slim, tonight, anyway.”  
  
“Barely a sipful, in her, but I suppose she’ll have to do.” The Master sounds vaguely pleased by the pitiful girl. “She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?”  
  
“Lovely.” In that moment, Angelus means it to the very core of his being. The only thing stupider than defiance in the Master’s presence would be sarcasm. It never does to be anything less than the very soul of subservience and loyalty. “Master--about the one who fought me--”   
  
“You’ve fed, Angelus.” One brow ridge lifts questioningly and the balmy atmosphere of the lair seems to drop about twenty degrees. “You stink of the mortal you’ve battened off of, but have brought me no offering. This, of course, makes me very interested in whatever you have to say.”  
  
From the corner of his eyes, he can see Luke’s nostrils flare, then that caveman smirk. And, as if all it wanted was this dangerous attention called to it, Alexander’s scent is recalled to his notice.   
  
The scent he’d been so careful to scrub off himself at the mansion.  
  
But Angelus still reeks of sunshine and innocence.  
  
Dismissing the scent--how had he thought it gone when he can still smell it so strongly?--and the boy he aches to claim, Angelus forges onward. “He was nothing more than a quick bite for strength--but the girl we captured--”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Eating her may not be the best idea--”  
  
The Master stands, steps gracefully over the unconscious girl and past Angelus. “I'm . . . your idiot childe, that you caution who and who not to eat?”  
  
The urge to turn around--follow the dominant predator with his eyes--is overhwelming. Angelus could no more not give in than he could fly around the lair. The Master looks at his ease, as if violence is the farthest thing from his mind.  
  
Angelus braces himself for anything from disfigurement to outright staking.   
  
“I meant no presumption, Master--nor to suggest that this paltry offering isn’t yours to do with as you wish.”  
  
“I have waited,” the Master has only to harden his voice to get complete silence. “For three score years I have waited. While you come and go--take and feed at  _will_ , I am stuck here in this . . . house of  _worship_!” Faster than Angelus's next blink, the Master has him by the neck, lifting and squeezing almost hard enough to crush Angelus’s throat.   
  
He makes himself go limp; struggling will likely get him dusted.   
  
“My ascension is almost at hand, boy.” Ugly-as-sin face  _this_  close to Angelus’s, and breath like the breeze off a mass grave. “Pray that when it comes, I'm in a better mood.” The Master drops Angelus to the floor and turns away.  
  
He lays there for a few moments, listening to the Master pace and Luke be insufferably smug. He wants nothing more than to let them both dust themselves on their own pride and all their  _Harvest_  nonsense. . . .  
  
But if that girl is who Angelus  _thinks_  she is, then she’ll be coming after more than the Master’s wee snack--she’ll be coming after _all_  of them.   
  
“The one that fought us knew the offering by name--as if they were friends. She was exceptionally strong, exceptionally  _fast_  and knew of our kind. . . . ” Angelus rubs his throat and gets to his feet; doubts the old bastard is still  _compos_  enough to follow the trail of breadcrumbs, so he adds: “I think she’s the Slayer.”  
  


*

  
  
“And that would be what, exactly?”   
  
Jesse looks from Faith to Wesley. Xander is simply staring at his hands as if they belong to someone else.  
  
Wesley glances at the clock. Nearly twelve-thirty. Several hours before the school day officially starts. Dawn feels as if it's eons away. “For almost as long as there have been vampires, there have been Slayers. One girl in all the world, a Chosen One.”  
  
“He loves doing this part,” Faith interjects, complete with her signature eye-roll.  
  
“Yes, it never gets old,” Wesley says dryly. Her answering grin is hard and mirthless. “The Slayer hunts the vampires, demons--”  
  
“I’m the Slayer. Don't tell anyone. That's all you need to know.”  
  
“Except for one thing.” Xander looks up at them with red, tired eyes. “How do we kill them?”  
  
Faith seems caught between between sympathy and impatience. “Uh,  _you_  don’t, cowboy.  _I_  kill ‘em. Me: Slayer. You: civilian, capische?”  
  
“ _No_  capische!” Xander jumps up, fists clenched like he wants to hit something or . . . some _thing_. “Willow’s our best friend, and Ang--those vampires  _have_  her! We’ve gotta get her back!”   
  
“Wrong, boyo, she’s  _my_  responsibility, I’ll save her. If it wasn’t for me--”  
  
“If it wasn't for you, they would have taken me and Xan, too.” Jesse’s earnest adoration makes Faith hang her head. “You saved our lives, Faith. Thanks.”   
  
"Yeah, whatever," she says softly, guiltily. "Don’t thank me till I get her back.”   
  
“Faith. . . .” Wesley puts a hand on her shoulder. But she bounces up and away, never one for taking comfort no matter how deserved. Already, Slayer healing has remedied the worst of the aches and injuries, leaving her jittery, ready to take action of some sort.  
  
“Look, Wes--Neander-vamp talked about an 'offering' to ‘the Master’. Now, I don't know what or who  _that_  is, but if they weren't just feeding, then Willow might still be alive, right?”  
  
“Well. . . .” One glance at Xander and Jesse’s strained faces and Wesley quashes his doubts for the nonce. “It’s certainly possible.”  _If not probable. . . ._  
  
“Then I’m gonna find her.” Faith snatches her jacket off mail table where it was haphazardly thrown, shrugs it on, then disappears down the hall. Her clipped tones float back to them. “The cemeteries may be a bust, but they’re all we got. Maybe I missed something.”  
  
When she reappears in the archway, she’s holding the biggest axe in their arsenal. Jesse’s eyes widen uneasily, but Xander’s nodding grim approval.  
  
“When you find those freaks . . . kill ‘em  _a lot,_ ” he says.  
  
Faith swings the axe in a small, tight semi-circle and smiles rather winsomely. “I always do.”  
  


*

  
  
“The Slayer,” the Master muses. “Have you any proof?”  
  
Luke answers before Angelus can. “She fought us, and yet lives.”  
  
 _You bastard. Harvest aside, I hope she dusts you. . . ._  
  
The Master  _hmms_  thoughtfully. “I can't remember the last time someone even came close to besting you . . . Luke.”   
  
Angelus lets the snub roll over him, keeps his eyes lowered and averted. If patience and servile arse-licking is what’ll get him his boy, his Alexander, free and clear of the Slayer's meddling. . . .  
  
 _. . . dark eyes, huge, dilated, trusting stare into his own, mesmerized. Kiss-swollen lips shape is name like a plea and Angelus leans in to taste them: syrupy cola-sweetness, and underneath that a cleaner, natural sweetness that's just the boy . . . Angelus gently bites his way to the throbbing pulse at the boy’s throat. Human heartbeats rabbit against his chest and warm, trembling fingers scrabble down Angelus's back to tug on his belt. The first hot gush of blood is as heady as summer wine. . . ._    
  
Angelus can do patience.   
  
It could be said that patience is his one virtue.  
  
“. . . mustn't be allowed to interfere with the Harvest,” the Master says, deceptively unperturbed by this turn.   
  
“She won’t, Master.” Luke and Angelus speak at the same time, and bow.  
  
The Master sighs. “She’s the  _Slayer_ , children. It is in her nature to . . . interfere. Especially since we have something she wants back.” He eyes the unconscious girl speculatively.  
  
“If she really  _is_  the Slayer, and the offering yet lives, she'll try to save it,” Luke smiles at the sleeping girl, gruesome enough Angelus wonders that she doesn't wake up screaming. “And I thought you nothing more than a midnight snack.”   
  
“Well, Angelus.” Luke’s voice is dripping with condescension. “Thanks to your carelessness, this . . .  _offering_  has just been upgraded to bait.”  
  
 _Soon, Alexander . . . I'll claim you over that bitch's drained and cooling corpse._  
  
Repressing a fond and triumphant smile isn’t something Angelus has had to attempt in recent memory . . . but he manages just fine.


End file.
